Armed with the books I have been intending to read, I am fully prepared for the cruise on the dahabiyya along the Nile. I should have known better, having done this cruise before and indeed having cruised along the Nile several times. I guess I may have thought ‘well, this time I fully intend to relax & read’. Relax, we certainly did, as for reading, so many of us came up on deck with our books that simply stayed close. You have a moving panorama of palm trees & lush vegetation hugging the Nile and beyond a sharp line as if done by a ruler where you have the scenes of the desert known as the Theban Hills. The splashes of colour come more into life as you observe the farming and activity of the local people bringing out images that could almost belong to biblical times but is still part of rural life, the ploughs being drawn by cattle, the water wheels, and the donkeys laden with wheat or sugar beet. I suppose the feeble attempt to read was because I forget how this moving landscape is rather like being in a film or watching a film in which you get completely absorbed. We occasionally go past small towns and signs of industry, a sugar beet factory or similar, but by and large, you witness scenes that have not changed for hundreds of years and remain timeless. I defy anyone to have a moment of boredom. All the while we are treated like Pharaohs, drinks and delicious food being plentiful and how very refreshing to have service with a genuine smile, service from staff that really do want to produce excellence and make each guest feel very special.
The uniqueness of doing a Nile cruise has surely to be the temples and tombs so majestic, so detailed with illustrations and hieroglyphics and for many of the tombs so colourful. Whilst you could not be failed to be impressed, it is the guide that weaves it all together making sense of the history these scenes represent. For myself I still grapple with the dynasties, with the Pharaohs and the Gods and this time I asked our guide for a chart, showing who was married to whom, defining the Gods against the Pharaohs. I am
sure many people go to Egypt having read and studied much about Egyptology. For myself, I never make the time, but the magic is always there and I came back full of intentions to sign up for a course.
I didn’t want a big party to celebrate or commiserate my 50th birthday. Much as I genuinely love people and there are many I would want to spend more time with, I felt an evening where I would be the host would only allow brief conversations and I would regret I hadn’t been able to spend more time with my guests. Instead, I chose to charter one of our dahabiyya (boats) on the Nile which takes 12 guests. I found the hardest thing was to select five friends, thinking about the dynamics and in some cases not knowing their partners. I would have liked to extend it more and could have done, though the experience would have been different as it would have meant 2 boats and therefore my dilemma about not spending enough time with each and everyone. To sum it up, it couldn’t really go wrong, a splendid panorama of sights, service that almost predicted your needs in terms of before you went to order a drink, they were there with the drinks, the food was excellent – almost like being at an open air theatre, where the show goes on for days and you can participate or observe or absorb yourself in something else. Harmony and spending time with special people in your life who often you only get to meet for one evening in months.
About Mandy Nickerson
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Mandy endeavours to share her travel experiences (where she will 'tell it like it is') and also detail the latest exciting projects that she is involved in.
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